TCU Initiates More Collaborations with Educational Institutions in India

Text: Ingrid Liu
Photo: Yu-Ling Wu
Translation: J.B. Willis, Steve J. Lin

From January 20-25, TCU’s delegation went to India seeking more collaboration with higher educational institutions there. The delegation visited the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Chennai first, and discussed plans of formulating academic exchanges with various universities in southern India. In addition, TCU’s delegation expressed gratitude to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center for speeding up visa applications of visiting scholars and exchange students who came to TCU.

Shih-Hsun Li, director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Chennai, invited Professor Alagu who is in charge of international collaborations for the Loyola Institute of Business Administration of India, to meet with the delegation. While studying in Taiwan, Professor Alagu had been very impressed by Tzu Chi Foundation’s recycling efforts. Back then, he realized that plastic wastes in India had been increasing, and had a sense of urgency that India needed to do more in recycling efforts and making good use of recyclables by employing new technologies. He always wanted to come back to Taiwan and learn these sustainable practices from Tzu Chi Foundation, and now he is happy to receive a grant from the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, to visit TCU as a scholar, from April through June of 2019.

To follow the government’s policy, TCU has made great efforts to collaborate with educational institutions in southern and southeast Asian countries, and India is on one of the top lists. SRM University is located in Chennai, India, and has sent more than ten exchange students to TCU every year, for them to carry out their research endeavors over a period of six months. Since the program has gone satisfactorily, TCU’ s delegation and SRM determined to extend the current program, and moreover, two universities decided to carry out the exchange program for faculty members and the offering a dual degree program in the near future. TCU’s delegation also signed a MOU with Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, and looks forward to having academic collaboration in the years to come. Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology was founded in 1987, and was given an “A” rating by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) of India, which was set up in making quality assurance an integral part of the functioning of Higher Education Institutions.

During the trip, the TCU delegation was accompanied by two other Taiwanese teams from the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center (ABRC) of Academia Sinica, and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of National Dong Hua University. They are renowned institutions in the fields of biomedical sciences, agricultural biotechnology, and materials science and technology, and they wish to attract more scientists or science students to come to Taiwan.